Left 4 Dead

While cleaning/moving our offices around (all our desks at Valve are on wheels so we can have desk races), we discovered this old, long ago used Zombie decision making tree. It was created before our session with Mike Patton to record the common zombie sounds. While it is near indecipherable gibberish thanks to bad penmanship, it shows not at an AI level how a zombie behaves but all the speech opportunities and transitions.

<b>Lone Gunman</b>You and your Magnum against the deadly horde and Boomers.So you have your Magnum pistol and… well you do have your Magnum pistol. You better be counting bullets because four swipes by a common and you are dead. Getting boomed? Forget about it.<br />

Following Left 4 Dead 2 How do you follow Left 4 Dead 2? It depends on your platform.<br />

<b>If you are on the PC or Mac:</b>Facebook Only 4%Twitter Only 2%Steam Forums Only 36%Facebook/Twitter/Steam 5%Facebook/Twitter 1%Facebook/Steam 16%Twitter/Steam 4%None of the above 32%<br />

Another way to look at it is 26% PC/Mac players use Facebook, 12% use Twitter, 61% use the Steam forums and 32% use none of those ways.<br />

<b>If you are on the 360:</b>Facebook Only 22%Twitter Only 2%Steam Forums Only 9%Facebook/Twitter/Steam 6%Facebook/Twitter 5%Facebook/Steam 7%Twitter/Steam 1%None of the above 48%<br />

That means 40% Xbox 360 players use Facebook, 14% use Twitter, 23% use the Steam forums and 48% use none of those ways.<br />

If we combine the communities – they are about the same size - 33% use Facebook, 14% use Twitter, and 43% use the Steam Forums and 40% use none of these. These numbers do not include the non-votes and only include players who read the blog so the – none of these – option is probably much larger. We have some work to do…<br />

<b>Movie Fan?</b>Have you ever watched a Left 4 Dead 1 or 2 inspired live action video on YouTube?<br />

<b>Next Wednesday?</b>Check back next Wednesday for a special update. We are going need your help...<br />

Last night a few updates were applied to the Xbox 360 version of Left 4 Dead.<br />Foremost is the ability to recover achievement progress that was lost after The Sacrifice release. Recovered progress will be added to any new progress made since the release. In a few cases it may not be possible to recover the data for every achievement, but the majority of players should see their progress restored.<br />

The update also includes the following:<br />• In Versus mode Tanks will spawn in stasis until a human player takes over. Tanks in stasis are invisible and invulnerable, and won't move or attack.• Tank speed is no longer reduced when on fire.• Allow players on the Infected team to manually spawn during finales.• Added a vote option to toggle All-Talk.• Special Infected that causes a Survivor to stumble into a "ledge hang" situation will receive 50 points.• Bullets that first pass through an infected character before striking a Survivor are now ignored as friendly fire.<• In Versus mode car alarms will now trigger anytime a Special Infected pulls or stumbles a Survivor into an alarm car.• Survivor Bots no longer try to melee exploding barrels out of their way.

<b>Gib Fest and…, You are Glowing, Do you compete?</b><br /><strong>Gib Fest</strong><br />M60s and buckets of blood. <br /> For our coop mutation this week we return to everyone’s favorite Gib Fest. Simple, go play.<br /><br /><strong>Realism Versus</strong><br />We are also “featuring” Realism Versus. This week we added quicker spawns for the infected. If you haven’t played recently, you are missing out on one of the most intense Left 4 Dead 2 competitive experiences. It is like regular Versus but no health kits in the world, no glows on fellow survivors, harder to kill commons and now faster Special Infected spawns (coming soon to the 360). <br />Give it a try this week, it's what all the cool kids will be playing.<br /><br />

<strong>You are glowing</strong><br />You liked the idea of changing the Survivor’s glow. The breakdown was roughly 50% for, 30% against, 20% no opinion but I just like to vote. So this week we are changing the glow and also incorporating a suggestion from the forums. The glow color will now correspond to the run speed of the Survivors. This should help tanks know who they can catch.<br />While we were at it, we added a glow to the Witch for the Infected team. <br /Sometimes poll results can be incorporated quickly into the game, sometimes they take a bit longer – just a warning for past and future polls. Just because we don’t make a change that week doesn’t mean the results are being ignored. Xbox 360 users will see these changes in future title update.<br /><strong>Do you compete?</strong><br />Have you ever played in an L4D1 or L4D2 tournament? Let us know in this week's in-game poll. <br />

On this date last year, we released Left 4 Dead 2. The year before Left 4 Dead debuted. The team would like to thank the over 9 million people who have taken the time to prepare for the upcoming zombie apocalypse. <br />

<strong>Healing Gnome</strong>There is only one way to heal, holding the Gnome!<br />

This Coop game is all about the Gnome and his magical healing properties. There is only one way to heal and that is by holding the Gnome. Better share him with your teammates!<br />

<strong>Halloween?</strong>If you haven’t checked out the Halloween Costumes on our Facebook pages, what are you waiting for? Hunters, Zoeys, Bills, and even Rochelles are all there to TERRIFY YOU!!! For the poll, the Hunter handily won followed by the Tank. PC players then chose Bill and 360 players chose Ellis.<br /> From a quick headcount in the real world, I think the order was Hunter, Ellis, Zoey, and then Bill. The Tank seemed to be too much for most people’s costume making abilities. <br />

<strong>Pick the Mutation.</strong>Pick Next week’s Mutation:1)Bleedout Versus2)Healing Gnome3)Hunting Party4)Lone Gunman5)Taaannnkk!<br /><strong>Tweet Tweet</strong>Want to know what the Left 4 Dead development team is working on or thinking about? Follow us on our brand new Twitter account at <a href='http://twitter.com/l4ddev'>twitter.com/l4ddev</a>. We promise we will never bore you with what we are eating or … okay, we did have some really good Thai food today. But look, we said that here and not on the twitter account, the twitter account will stay food free. We promise. Most likely.<br />

<strong>Bleed Out Versus</strong>Now you have a good excuse for rushing through Versus.<br />

There is no permanent Survivor health, it is all temporary and it is ticking down. Even if you don’t normally play Versus, this is a great mutation to try. The action is frantic and fast as team wipes are always just a few seconds away.<br />

<strong>You Rock!</strong>It didn’t matter on the platform, 38% of you have rocked out with the Midnight Riders in Rock Band. We need to get cracking on converting the rest of the Riders’ catalog.<br />

<strong>Are you dressing up for Halloween?</strong>Of course you are, the real question is - are you dressing up as someone from the Left 4 Dead universe? If you do dress up, make sure to post your picture on our Facebook pages. This week’s poll asks who you would dress up as - make sure to vote using the in-game poll.<br />

Still not sure who you want to be, what about just being part of the crowd? If you are going to go as a common infected make sure to <a href="http://www.petrilude.com/?p=586">check out this tutorial </a>on getting your infected makeup right.<br />

Don’t forget, if you are in Seattle this weekend, the first annual ZomBcon will be in full swing. Look for us Sunday, we’ll be the ones carrying shwag and concept art to hand out at our 12 noon panel.<br />

<b>Lone Gunman Mutation</b>You and your Magnum against the deadly horde and Boomers.<br />So you have your Magnum pistol and… well you do have your Magnum pistol. You better be counting bullets because four swipes by a common and you are dead. Getting boomed? Forget about it.